PSBank Debit MasterCard TV commercial praised by advertising expert.

Sept. 20, 2011 - PRLog -- Making over the celebrity endorser
Ads and Ends, BusinessWorld
by Nanette Franco-Diyco

It is amazing how many TV commercials use celebrity endorsers nowadays, in one form or another. Of course, the advertiser is convinced that if the advertising agency can recommend a particular celebrity endorser suited to his product or brand, everything else will follow. Some advertisers don’t even pay attention to the suitability of his product to the celebrity endorser. Many will bank on the popularity of the selected celebrity and voila, expect the person to sell his product en punto.
After all, you cannot shrug off the near-addiction of many target markets to celebrities. You cannot imagine how many people will follow whatever these celebrities claim to be eating, drinking, wearing or bathing in, cooking, washing clothes or shampooing their hair with.
The client gets his wish and the advertising agency and the production house make sure that the celebrity endorser acts out his lines with bravado. The commercial is launched and sales soar beyond expectation. Or sales are expected to ultimately climb the charts.
Or at the very least, the celebrity endorser will capture the attention of the viewers. They will then get to know of the product. Nobody can deny the almost built-in effectiveness of the use of the celebrity endorser in television commercials -- if you want instant recognition and attention.
The downside is that every advertiser seems to be using this approach. And let’s face it, it can get pretty tiring.
To get all the benefits of using a celebrity endorser and at the same time rise above the clutter of this execution, advertising agency Seven A.D. decided to do the unexpected. I am particularly impressed with the way they used the approach of the ubiquitous celebrity endorser -- but in a totally different way -- for their biggest client, PSBank.
In the words of director Stephen Ngo, "The TV commercial is a personification of the PSBank ATM/Debit card, that it has the appeal, energy, unique attractiveness of John Lloyd Cruz, making the card more than just a regular value for money card but one of image and appeal.
"The challenge was for this to stand out among [his] many endorsements. How? I trimmed it down to the very essence of the storyboard. It is John Lloyd Cruz as a concept.
"So that’s all we see in the commercial: John Lloyd Cruz being what other people attribute to him -- cool, appealing, irresistible. Just like the card. In the end, the production was very fun, John Lloyd was very game and fun to work with."
Simply put, the celebrity endorser does not say a single word in the commercial. He neither holds at anytime the PSBank MasterCard that he is endorsing. He simply acts out what his image to the viewers is. The commercial opens with an announcer’s voice saying that if this card were a person, it would be John Lloyd.
Totally different and clever. Take a bow, Seven A.D. and client PSBank for allowing its ad agency to fly!
Credits. Client-company, PSBank. Advertising agency: Seven A.D. CEO, Teeny Gonzales; ECD, Russell Molina; creative director, Rina Dela Calzada; copywriter, Russell Molina/Maki Maquiling; art director, Rina Dela Calzada, Argem Vinuya, Tokwa Peñaflorida; account management, Tey San Diego, Wella Balagtas, Lester Obice, Denise Amora; producer, Steve Vesagas/Lei Hosseinzadeh. Production House: Pabrika. Post Production: Underground Logic. Director, Stephen Ngo; EP, Marivic San Juan; Music, Alan Feliciano, Loud Box. Sound Design, HIT Productions.

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PSBank is the first publicly listed thirft bank in the Philippines. It caters mainly to the retail and consumer markets and offers a wide range of products and services such as deposits,loans, treasury and trust.